


if there's a cool spot in hell (i hope you get it)

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: ?? if thats a term you can use outside of hostage situations, Multi, Stockholm Syndrome, dub-con (that's not actually a thing but in this context it means no violent rape), very frankly depicted sexual and child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:18:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dave knows it isn't the pizza guy out there. He knows, and yet. If it is, and Dave read the voice wrong, he'll be out one sausage and mushroom pie."Anybody home?" Says the voice, and Dave knows without a shadow of a doubt, a level of doubt so low it'd be marked as negligible in the census of Dave's thoughts and not averaged in, that the person on the other end of the door is his brother.He can't say no, never could and will never be able to. He goes to the door and opens it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hey all! it's 4am and as far as i'm concerned nothing exists except me and my trauma.

Dave knows it isn't the pizza guy out there. He knows, and yet. If it is, and Dave read the voice wrong, he'll be out one sausage and mushroom pie. 

He hates that Bro knew he'd be ordering pizza. Was he spying, or does he really know Dave that well?

I'm the only one who knows you, was what Bro always said. I'm the only one who'll ever give a shit.

Dave has yet to prove him wrong.

Well. It doesn't take much insight into a motherfucker's hopes and aspirations to know that he orders a pizza every now and then. 

The knocking on the door starts up again. Dave feels like the fist is hitting his gut, not the door, feels punched out and shaky. 

"Anybody home?" Says the voice, and Dave knows without a shadow of a doubt, a level of doubt so low it'd be marked as negligible in the census of Dave's thoughts and not averaged in, that the person on the other end of the door is his brother. 

He can't say no, never could and will never be able to. He goes to the door and opens it.

-

Dave's hands are shaking like he's seizing and he feels like he's about to have a heart attack. Mostly his ass hurts. Bro's never gone that far before. 

He once sucked Dave off like he was doing him a favor, and Dave wished he hadn't let Bro hear the wounded, vulnerable noise that he made when he came. He's learned from movies that sex is special, and valuable, and saved for someone you love very much. If Dave knows anything in the world, it's that he loves Bro very much, but not this way. He feels cheap. He feels filthy. He feels like throwing up, like taking a shower and scrubbing the top layer of his skin off with steel wool. But Bro was inside of Dave, so really Dave feels like scrubbing himself away layer by layer until there is nothing left at all.

He cried while they were doing it, so now, empty and desolate, Dave waits for the frantic drumming of his pulse to trigger an actual heart attack. When that doesn't happen, a grim kind of certainty fills Dave, sluicing into him like still water. 

Bro was nice enough to carry Dave back to his bed, but that means there's gonna be more sneaking involved to get out of the apartment. Dave grabs his pants and underwear and does not look down while pulling them on. His asshole is still wet, and Dave retches when he feels what's in him moving around. He stands there heaving against the wall for a moment, before resolve stills in him again. He can't afford to lose time. 

Dave will need a jacket, money, toothpaste and a brush. He empties his school backpack and crams it full of all the snacks and nonperishables that are in the house, which leave room to spare. He reaches his hand into Cal's stomach, biting down on the panic that rises in him at the sight of that fucking puppet, and takes out Bro's cash stash. About two hundred, three hundred dollars. Should last Dave until… Wherever he's headed.

For the jacket part, Dave's ratty hoodie will have to do. He surveys his goods, and as an afterthought grabs an extra pair of underwear. There. Ready to go.

Dave gives one last look at the apartment, and knows with a rising flurry of giddiness that this will be the last time he ever sees it. He wishes he could say a silent goodbye to Bro, but he's in the crawlspace. Just as well. Dave didn't have to risk waking him up tip-toeing around the living room.

The furniture suspended on cinderblocks, the futon with the stuffing coming out, wires upon wires on the floor like the veins of some great terrible creature, like Dave used to pretend when he was little, the electric fan whirring away in the corner. Dave doesn't know how he feels, but does know that can't feel that way for too much longer, or else he might cry again. He shuts the door quietly behind him and sets off down the hall.

\-- 

Bro looks exactly the same as he ever did. He's wearing his t-shirt with Kermit the frog on it, his stupid fucking shades, his gloves, his baggy jeans. Same expression that Dave can't read, no matter how long he's spent trying. 

Dave's decided that whatever's in there would probably scare Dave more than not knowing.

"You're not the pizza guy." Dave says. His voice sounds like it's coming from a spot three feet away from him. "What gives, bro? Had me all hyped up for a nice meal. Now I gotta hype myself back down again, and that's never any fun."

"Do I not get a hello?" Dave can see Bro's eyes, vaguely, between two layers of sunglasses. They're cold. "I see how it is, kid. Didn'tchya miss me?"

Dave knows, logically, that Bro is not a vampire; he doesn't need to be invited to mosey on into someone's private abode. It still comes as a surprise when Bro pushes past him and surveys the room.

"Nice place you got here." Bro sounds as close to jovial as his deadpan can get. Dave used to think he was cool. Now he knows that Bro's low affect is probably evidence that he's a real, actual sociopath. 

Still, Dave can feel his own face shifting to match Bro's. He can feel himself unbecoming, dissolving and reforming as the person he was a year ago. He hadn't realized what Bro took away until he started gaining it back, grabbing it towards himself greedily, trying it on to see how it fit. Dave has a job, now, IRL friends and even a guy he's seeing. He wonders vaguely if Bro wants to fuck him, if that's why he's here. He thinks that the guy he's seeing would probably mind, but doesn't see anything he can do about it.

Dave shuts the door behind them and rubs his arm. He tries to force his voice into hardening, but it still wavers a little when he says, "How'd you find me."

Bro turns around and gives Dave an unimpressed look.

"There's nowhere you could go I wouldn't find you." 

It's not much of an answer, but it wasn't meant to be. It was meant to terrify Dave, and it does that just fine.

-

It dawns on Dave as he hits the elevator button for the first floor that he doesn't have a car. Dave got his license covertly, and driving gives him panic attacks, but he can do it passably. Which Bro doesn't know. He likes keeping Dave under his thumb, Dave supposes. Now Dave's sawing the thumb right off.

Dave searches the 4 AM Houston streets for Bro's truck, ducking his head down around the stinking drunks and homeless people chattering to themselves. Everything seems so scary all of a sudden, and Dave feels so small. He remembers when he used to curl up into Bro's side and Bro would hold him, and love him. He's spent his life since then chasing that love. Now he's running in the opposite direction, and it's terrifying. Everything bad in Dave's life is because of Bro, and still. Still.

Bro's car is two blocks away, and Dave's hands are shaking so badly by the time he gets there that he has to stop and breathe, and try to find that great and breathtaking calm that had filled him before.

He breathes out panic, and breathes in stillness. In, out. Then he finds a brick and smashes the window of Bro's truck.

Dave drops the brick, gone skittish, and vaults his way through the window as quickly as he can. Bro's truck is old as shit, and doesn't have a car alarm. It's also old enough that it's super easy to hotwire. Which Dave does, and then he's driving towards the city limits. 

He wishes he could say he didn't look back, but the times he damn near turned the car around couldn't be counted on all Dave's fingers and toes. 

But he doesn't, is the thing here,

\-- 

"Alright, Mister fucking Miyagi, with the platitudes instead of answers. I'm serious, how'd you find me." Dave shies away from his own aggression. He didn't know he had even this small amount in him.

Bro, to his credit, seems unfazed. "Phone book, genius."

Oh, well. Dave feels like a fucking idiot. He never should have gotten a landline.

"Why'd you bother, then? You gonna bring me back?" Fear edges Dave's voice at that, because he knows he would go if Bro asked, and if he doesn't and Bro leaves, Dave would never in his life see him again. He doesn't know which option scares him more. "I figured you'd see it as one less mouth to feed."

"You mostly fed yourself." Is Bro's response. Shameless bastard. 

"Touché." Says Dave.

"Anyway." Bro continues. "I got lonely back in Houston. Sue me."

Dave doesn't say anything. Lonely, huh. He can only vaguely conceptualize the idea that Bro feels anything at all. Mostly Dave's brother baffles him. He dislocated Dave's shoulder, for instance, but then was so sweet and gentle when he popped it back into place. Stuff like that.

"I'm calling my lawyer up right now, getting the case up and ready. Telling her you can't find better company than your kid brother. We're both laughing at you, loser."

Bro steps closer, regards Dave. "But you're not a kid anymore, are you."

Dave's skin crawls. He doesn't want that gaze on him. He feels like a piece of meat, or a lab animal with its guts splayed.

Bro steps closer, and with every step forward he takes, Dave takes one backwards. It feels like they're dancing. Dave's learned that he likes dancing, recently, but he's thinking that maybe Bro's gonna ruin that for him, too.

Dave's backed against the wall, and Bro's hands go to Dave's waist. "This ain't the warmest of welcomes you're givin' me here, baby bro." Dave swallows. "I said I missed you. Did you miss me?"

Dave wishes he could say no, and that he'd be telling the truth. Dave wishes he could say no even if he wasn't. Dave wishes his mouth wasn't too dry to speak. He nods tightly.

\-- 

Dave drives for days. He has a friend named Rose in New York, and he hopes that she'll let him stay with her. Or at least point him in the right direction. She has her own apartment, and Dave sent her a box set of his musical discography one time so if he combs through his pesterlogs he can find her address. It's a foolproof plan.

The desert is endless and the color of khakis, with weeds dotting the terrain every so often like loose threads on a pair of very ugly shorts. Sometimes Dave sees armadillos at the side of the road. He sees roadkill, too, and cactuses, but not much else. The sunsets outdo themselves in terms of extravagance each night, to the point where it gets annoying.

He runs out of money for gas on day four. The truck is abandoned on the side of the road, and Dave takes to sticking his thumb out and hoping for the best. 

Eventually, he catches a supply truck into New York city and rides with the crates in the back until they make him get off. Then he rides the subway to Rose's, hyper-aware of how he must look him his frayed hoodie, raggedy track pants and grimy face. Dave makes an executive decision and washes himself with wet paper towels in a McDonald's restroom, and then he takes the elevator up to Rose's apartment.

\--

Bro's never kissed Dave before. It makes Dave want to throw up, a red wet tongue in his mouth. Rose's lips were thin and painted black, and her tongue never pushed. He tries to think of her, and how sorry he is that he fucked it up, until Bro's leading him to his sagging couch and Dave can't retreat into his head any longer. He wonders if he has enough saved up to buy a new couch after this. He knows what's going to happen with a deadening certainty, and he at least wants to know he can burn the cushions when it's over.

Bro lays him down on the couch almost tenderly, apologetically. 'I know you hate this, but this is how it has to be', his hands say. 'I'm sorry, but not sorry enough to stop.'

"Pobrecito." He kisses Dave's brow. "You were all alone out here. Why'd you go and leave, anyway?" There's a lot Bro isn't saying, that Dave can hear anyway. I'm going to make you wish you never left, for starters. Dave's teeth start chattering, but it's okay, because Dave's insides have gotten very small and he is hiding in them until this is over. 

"You never really stood a chance, on your own. Look at you, shaking like a kid." Bro skims his hands down Dave's torso. "And look at this. Have you been gaining weight? Must not be working yourself hard enough." And yes, Dave's body agrees, yes, I should go back to weighing nothing. Dave's body agrees to anything, it's cheap, it's tempting, it's a welcome mat. It's his mind that makes things hard, but his mind is buried under layers of cotton, wrapped away and placed somewhere safe.

There's more.

\--

Dave lives out of Rose's pockets until he gets a minimum wage job washing dishes at a Chinese food joint. All the while, Rose watches him with those big, understanding violet-blue eyes. It makes Dave's skin prickle, if he's being honest, all that earnest concern without strings or contradictions. He's not sure if he likes it, which makes him more fucked up than he was before, even. 

But he does like that Rose is trying, and that Rose likes him. She kisses him on the mouth one day, very chastely, and Dave thinks, huh. 

So he comes home from work and wraps his arms around her from behind while she works at her laptop. He presses his nose to the crown of her head and breathes in the relative normalcy of their lives. She smells like cheap perfume and mothballs. Domesticity. They drink together, she more than him, and when he's really wasted he can hold her on his lap and kiss her neck and touch her breasts and it all feels good.

One night he's in bed with Rose, and she gets her hands around him and suddenly his vision shorts out like a television set in a storm. He can't hear anything, either. All he can feel are gloved hands on his hips and tears on his face and the vibrations of his voice from inside his head, going 'stop, please'--

He opens his eyes to Rose rubbing his back, face soft and worried . He never kisses Rose again, and after that their interactions are limited to negotiating the use of their shared bathroom.  
Rose wants him to talk, and Dave isn't going to be able to. Within the month, he books a flight to LA, and when he gets off the plane, he is alone again.

\--

Dave never really fought back, is the thought that always niggles in Dave's head when he's trying to sleep. 

Take now, for instance. He lets himself be posed on the couch, and when Bro's hands go to the button on Dave's pants after he talks for a while in words Dave doesn't understand, Dave lets out an imperceptible sigh. At least with Bro, doing this type of thing feels normal. Not good, but something inevitable, something that he allows to be done to his body without much fuss. Being with Bro makes him feel safe and small and scared. He whines.

Dave slips in and out of his body. This can't be real, he thinks, then for a few moments it isn't. Then he slides back into focus and there's Bro in Dave's apartment, which doesn't make sense because he's never been there in the past, and his mouth is doing something disgusting between Dave's legs. Then Dave panics and the world gets incoherent again. It's a system Dave's worked out for when he's getting his ass handed to him, or in situations like, you know. This. 

When he feels the head of Bro's dick pushing inside of him, though, Dave's blood rushes in his ears like a thousand cars on a freeway, and Dave's standing in the middle of it all. Dave let this happen once, a million years ago. Fear. All he knows is that he doesn't want that wet feeling inside of him, never a-fucking-gain. The room shifts into focus and then some, 240p to IMAX definition, Dave's heart pounds in his chest so hard he's sure it's making his chest quake with the low terrific bass of it, and he draws back his fist and punches Bro in the jaw with strength he didn't know he had. 

Bro reels back with a choked curse. His dick is still out, and Dave tries not to look at it as he shimmies his pants back up and buttons them up, as fast as he can. Then he's sprinting out of the apartment without bothering to grab anything. He jack-knifes out a window and climbs up four consecutive fire escapes to the roof, where he can finally breathe. 

Dave considers the feeling of his knuckles hitting Bro's jaw, the sound they made. He can still feel them tingling. It was a fucking amazing hit. Is this how Bro felt every time he hit Dave? It's a mean, satisfied kernel of a feeling, but it makes Dave smile. Bro wasn't expecting that, for fucking sure. He was expecting the Dave that curled up next to his side after taking a beating, begging with every move he made for some form of affection. 

Dave's decided he's done with the kind of affection Bro gives. Surveying the palm trees and the Hollywood sign in the distance, Dave figures he's alright with never seeing Bro again. The mean feeling clenches and expands. Dave breathes deeply. 

Somewhere below Dave, street level, Bro gets into a shiny new truck, a bruise covering one side of his face. He drives off, and Dave thinks about whether or not he'll look back. He thinks about how and if Bro sleeps at night. He thinks about the future.

\-- 

Dave stays up at night writing his screenplay. He orders out too much, but that's alright because his new job at the Ben & Jerry's pays pretty well. He looks out the window at the Hollywood sign and thinks that maybe the past isn't all that there is. 

One day, he gets up from the sofa to answer the pizza guy. He's a little early, which is sweet. Dave ordered a sausage and mushroom pie.


End file.
